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From early records, it is suprising how much information has been discovered about Nottinghamshire and most certainly there is still more to be revealed. As my research is an ongoing project and all the pages on the site will be regularly updated.
In presenting my research into the history of Nottinghamshire & The Broxtowe Hundreds, I decided to separate it into two particular categories. Consequently, there are early Births Deaths & Marriages & History covering the period from 1600 to around 1850 and there are Pictorial images of village history from that time to around the year 2000.
The history of the Nottinghamshires villages from that time is covered on other Parish pages under various headings.
I have avoided describing the hierarchy of status within the village though always it had a master and each person knew his or her place and duties.
The main priority was to farm the surrounding fields and in medieval times the land was divided between hay meadow, common pasture, woodland, ploughland and small units such as orchards and paddocks. There were also small strips or pieces of land attached to the peasant huts where small livestock and vegetables could be raised.
The typical peasant family would live in a ramshackle home that was dark, cramped and some must have been overcrowded, as few families were as large 8.
Life would have changed for some villagers between 1759 - 1879 when the first Enclosure Act in Nottinghamshire was made law.
Greater changes occurred around 1890, with the arrival of miners to the villages from other parts of Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire.
The landscape to the south west and north Nottinghamshire changed dramatically with the arrival of the deep mining all around Mansfield, Shireoaks, Teversal, Cinderhill and Eastwood collieries. The landscape was scarred by the spoil heaps ("pit tips"). Today, the countryside, shows very little evidence of their previous existence. Even the 1960's opencast mining operation that took place in the valleyies in and around Clay Cross, Trowell, Cossall and Strelley, shows no trace except for the fields now being much larger and the absence of hedgerows.
With the closure of the local collieries, some of the villages of Nottinghamshire, with there close knit community at that time, like many other villages, suffered economic hardship but it did not decay.
We have to remember that a villages in Nottinghamshire would only flourish when conditions are right and will swiftly perish when the special circumstances which fostered it are removed.
What of the future for some very small villages as Strelley and Cossall? Most certainly it will survive and flourish. It has changed and will continue to change. The desire for country life will continue to sustain and revitalise these villages but at what price? Will community spirit be lost or will it flourish? Only time and the future history will tell!
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